I have vague memories as a child of meeting my great-grandmother a few times…I think I must have been about 6 when she died. Don’t remember much, other than she looked really old (hey, I was 6).
And as long as I am on the topic, do you know much about your great grandparents, or great-great grandparents, or further back?
Sort of sad to think I know so little…just a few stories about my great-grandparents, but little or nothing about any generation prior to that.
Mine died before I was born. One of my grandfathers died in 1957 so I barely met him.
Yes, absolutely. My great-grandmother lived next to my junior high and high school and I stayed with her before school and after school from ages 11 - 14. She was a saint and died when she was 85 a few years later. I knew her quite well. I recently realized the math on my other great-grandmother was interesting in terms of generation jumping stories. She died just before I was 5 in 1977 at the age of 94 but I certainly knew her pretty well. I am only 35 but I had a close, known, relative that was born in 1883 and told me stories about her family well before that including before the Civil War. I still have two grandparents that are alive to serve as great-parents to my daughters ages 6 and 2 who can easily tell coherent stories to them about the 1920’s, the Great Depression, WWII and beyond. My mother’s father at 83 shows no signs whatsoever of dementia and still goes out dancing with his girlfriend dancing on weekends.
While I never knew any of my other great-grandparents, I was 19 when my great-grandmother died. I consider myself really lucky to have that experience - I know lots about her life going back to the turn of the 20th century, and I’m only 30.
My last living great-grandparent (my mom’s grandma) only died a few years ago. My son, who is five and knew but obviously won’t remember his great-great-grandmother, still has all his great-grandparents (save one, my mom’s dad, who died when my mom was seven) and they are all in relatively good health so I expect him to retain memories of them which is something I value. His paternal grandfather is already dead and forgotten, but my parents are still alive and young and his other grandmother is in good health, so that’s okay. I know people who grew up without any grandparents at all and that’s so sad to me. Grandparents (and great-grandparents) are nice to have.
I don’t know much of anything about the older generations of my family.
I met all four on my mother’s side. On set died when I was very young. All I remember about them was that my great grandfather would feed me circus peanuts and tell me stories about fighting in WWI.
The other set lived a lot longer. They were Louisiana farm folk. My maternal grandmother always loved the show, The Waltons because she said it was exactly like her childhood growing up on a farm during the Depression with a giant family. My favorite story about my great grandfather on that side is about when my mother first told him she was pregnant with his first great grandchild (me). She asked him how he felt about becoming a great grandfather and he said, “well, that don’t bother me so much as the idea of sleeping with old great grandma over there.”
My last grandparent died when I was 3 weeks old, so I don’t remember any of them.
I do seem to recall a little bit about a great-grandmother though. I think she died when I was four or five. I just have a few memories of her house, and being there a few times.
I have the very vaguest memory of meeting one of my great grandmothers when I was tiny. I was more interested in the giant balloon my great uncle gave me. She died when I was 12, but I never saw her again… we lived too far away.
A couple of years ago I discovered my aunt has a couple of Polaroids of me sitting on my great grandfather’s lap. I was amazed and thrilled to discover they exist. I was 3 when he died, and don’t remember meeting him at all. All my other great grandparents died around the same time.
Great-grandparents? Two of my grandparents died before I was born. But the two remaining ones (my father’s mother and my mother’s father) married each other.
No. Of my eight great-grandparents:
For that matter, both of my paternal grandparents were long dead before I was born (bizarrely, my paternal grandmother died December 6, 1964, and I was born December 6, 1984). That’s what comes of being born to parents who had you later in life.
One great-grandmother died when I was about 6, so I sort of knew her.
The other one died just six months ago, on my 30th birthday, at the age of 103. Her husband passed away in 1957, so she was a widow for fifty years! :eek:
The only one alive when I was born was my great-grandmother Laura.
She had lived through interesting times: an adult Protestant in Northern Ireland during the Rising and the Civil War, at which time she left for the UK for her own safety. She bequeathed us an amazing scrapbook with clippings about Sinn Fein and the Titanic and so on - the designer of the Titanic was her cousin.
I was pretty young when she died, but I do remember a decrepit old lady putting me on her knee as a toddler. My family has a portrait of her from her first flush of youth, and she was a serious Edwardian hottie.
On my father’s side, no.
On my mother’s side I knew my grandmother’s mother (Nanna Moyle) and her 2nd husband (Poppa Moyle). She died about 7 years ago or so. Before I moved to Sydney. Unfortunately from the time I was old enough to know her, she was suffering pretty advanced dementia that eventually led on to Alzheimer’s. So I never really “knew” her as a person.
My mother’s father’s mother (Namma) died last year. She was feisty to the end. After she died she left a diary for my grandparents and I got a chance to read it. It was pretty awesome reading about her taking her two sons (my grandpa and his brother) on a train, then a road trip, all the way from Sydney to Darwin. On her own. In the 1940s
all my great grands were in the “old” country and died before i was born. 3 grandparents died before i was born, and my grandmother lived with us.
I made sure my son would have taped footage of himself with his paternal grandmother. Here’s the Youtube clip. She’s 82, still healthy, thank god, because she’s a very nice lady and a joy to go visit.
I knever knew my own great-grandparents, but thanks to a few genealogy enthusiasts in my extended family, I have pictures, stories, and even pictures of pre-photography paintings! 
But then again, this is Europe, where a 100 miles is considered a lot, (as opposed to the USA) but a hundred years is nothing.
I don’t really remember any of my great-grandparents, although my maternal grandmother’s own mother died when I was eight. We visited her in a home a few times and I just saw an old lady who kind of scared me. I do recall her funeral though. Her daughter, my grandmother, cried, and it’s the first time I realized that grown ups cry too.
Later in the year President Kennedy was assasinated, and when our school principal came to each class to tell us I could see he wanted to cry, although he didn’t.
My extended family just celebrated the 104th birthday of my own grandmother, the one I mentioned above. She has plenty of great-grandchildren that are getting to the stage where they are old enough to remember her, plus a couple of great-great granchildren. But I don’t think the latter would remember.
I always say, to get an idea of how much has changed since Grandma was born, well, she was born on the first anninversary of the Wright brother’s flight at Kitty Hawk.
I met my tail female line great-grandmother when I was living in England in the 70s. She was born in 1885 and when I visited her she was 91. She asked me if I liked the fresh paint job in her apartment. I said yes and asked who painted it and she replied, “I did, of course.”
Does this create any of those “you are your own father” situations?
I knew my Great-grandmother. Well, “knew” is probably too strong a word. I visited her regularly until she died when I was about 7. She suffered from dementia, so I never got to know what kind of woman she was. From what I’ve been told she was an excellent cook, and even once cooked for the Queen. She was a strong woman too. She was an unmarried mother in Ireland, but was able to look after her daughter. She took the secret of who the father was to her grave.
I knew two of my great grandparents. My father’s mother’s father lived until I was 11, he was 88. I also kind of knew my mother’s mother’s mother, though she lived in California and I lived in Maryland. I meet her a time or two at least. I have photos with me of both of them.
I did not know my mother’s father at all. He died when I was conceived. My father’s father died when I was 10 or so, though I didn’t know him very well either.
My daughters know two of their great grandparents, my mother’s mother is still alive, and my wife’s father’s mother is still alive. They have both meet them both even though they live in other states.
I know a lot about my great grandparents, and even a bit about my great great grandparents as I’m doing the family tree. I missed knowing a great grandmother by a year. Two other great grandparents died long before even my father knew them.